Crop Notes (3): White Cabbage

[Deleted]

A member of the brassiceae family.  The riff-raff call this family The Cabbage Tribe, 'cos 'brassiceae' is too difficult a word for them.

Excuse me......Just heard the 'ping' of a new message arriving in my inbox.....Thought so.......Someone has complained that it's racial discrimination to post a Note about White Cabbage.  She's one of those Bright Young Things fresh from college.  She's gonna change the World.  Old duffers like me should be put to sleep.  We no longer serve any useful purpose.  Worse, every time I use the toilet I add to the World's pollution.  In some way her poo is better than mine....

If you're female you don't even have to be bright to go to college.  Just fill out the application form and turn up for the interview.  Bring your t*ts.  Men on interview panels like them.  Men are so sad.  Works for job interviews too..

After college the Bright Young Things jump on every loony-left bandwagon and attend all the demonstrations, to, er, change the World.  They don't change anything, but it's a nice day out.  The rest of us know that the only way to change the World is to put the right amount of money in the right peoples' pockets at the right time.  The BYT's haven't learned that yet.  Soon they will.  Then they'll get married and settle down.  Then the only thing they'll want to change is their husband.  Or the childrens' school.  Or the kitchen.  The rest of the World can go to hell.

I'll finish this Note another day.  Gotta take a nap.  Nothing much will change in the meantime..

[Deleted]

Black Kale, cavolo nero, is also a member of The Cabbage Tribe, so in the interests of political correctness I'll include it in this Note.  Some people say that it's also Jewish, and lesbian, but I don't know if that's true.  It does have disabilities, but no more than is naturally occuring in other species of plant or animal.  So in that respect it already has equality.

Cabbage of a certain light colour is good in stir-fries and coleslaw.  I dare say that you could stir-fry Black Kale but it's no good in coleslaw.  A case of White Supremacy, if ever there was one...

All members of The Cabbage Tribe like a rich soil.  Traditionally this means digging in manure, or sprinkling fertilizers, but there is a third option.  If you plough up meadowland, preferably ancient meadowland, the soil is already enriched.  Microscopic roothairs from the grasses have been dying and then being re-born, for ages.  All those roothairs make the soil rich.

This options also means that you'll destroy the habitat of the Skylark.  This bird is a nuisance.  Hovering on high it fills the air with its 'song', and thereby spoils the peace of the countryside.  For this reason I prefer to plough up meadowland rather than add manure or fertilizers.  Two birds, one stone.

 The Cabbage White  Butterfly lays its eggs on cabbages.  The resulting caterpillars eat the cabbages.  We don't want this.
Fine netting - 2mm mesh size - keeps them off.  'Debris' netting, as used on scaffolding, is available from eBay.  It comes in different colours to match the colour of your car.

There is no no finer sight than ploughed-up meadowland under flourescent orange netting, whether or not your car is that colour....

[JohnP]

I am surprised you manage to speak at all with your tongue so firmly embedded in your cheek Annon.

As my mother used to say to me......."stop pulling faces or one day you will stay like that"